University of Virginia Library

previous section Il Pastor Fido, The faithfull Shepherd
next section

To the Authour of this TRANSLATION.

Such is our Pride, our Folly, or our Fate,
That few but such as cannot write, translate.
But what in them is want of wit, or voice,
In thee is either Modestie, or Choice.
Whiles this restored work at thy command
Casts off the blemish of an artlesse hand.
Secure of Fame, thou justly dost esteem
Lesse honour to create, then to redeem.
Nor ought a Genius lesse then his that writ,
Attempt Translation; for transplanted wit
All the defects of air and soil doth share,
And colder brains like colder Climates are:
In vain they toil, since nothing can beget
A vitall spirit, but a vitall heat.
That servile path thou nobly dost decline
Of tracing word by word, and line by line.
Those are the labour'd births of slavish brains,
Not the effects of Poetry, but pains.

Cheap vulgar arts, whose narrownesse affords
No flight for thoughts, but poorly sticks at words.
A new and nobler way thou dost pursue
To make Translations, and Translators too.
They but preserve the Ashes, Thou the Flame,
True to his sense, but truer to his fame.
Foording his current, where thou find'st it low
Let'st in thine own to make it rise and flow.
Wisely restoring whatsoever grace
It lost by change of Times, or Tongues, or Place.
Nor fetter'd to his Numbers, and his Times,
Betray'st his Musick to unhappy Rimes,
Nor are the nerves of his compacted strength
Stretch'd and dissolv'd into unsinnewed length:
Yet after all (lest we should think it thine)
Thy spirit to his circle dost confine.
New names, new dressings, and the modern cast,
Some Scenes, some persons alter'd, had outfac'd
The world, it were thy work; for we have known
Some thank't & prais'd for what was lesse their own.
That curious hand which to the life can trace
The ayrs, the lines, and features of a face,
May with a free and bolder stroke expresse
A varyed posture, or a flatt'ring Dresse;
He could have made those like, who made the rest,
But that he knew his own design was best.
JOHN DENHAM.
previous section Il Pastor Fido, The faithfull Shepherd
next section